Witnesses of These Things

 

We set out to find His friends to tell them.
We went to Jerusalem to tell them;
and with joy we told them, “We have seen the Lord!”
And as we were speaking there, He stood among us, blessed us, said to us,
“Now my peace I leave with you.” We saw Him!
Suddenly our eyes were opened, and we knew He was alive!

 

Some of the old-timers here may recognize those lines from the second verse of the hymn, In the Breaking of the Bread,* which we used to sing here at Saint Paul’s every Easter season. It recalls some of the highlights from Emmaus to Pentecost, among them the event recounted in today's Gospel, as the Risen Lord revealed himself to his disciples and transformed them into his Church.

 

Typically, in these gospel stories of the Risen Lord’s appearances to his disciples, there is the sense that, while this is certainly the same Jesus the disciples had followed in life and who had died on the Cross, something about him is now different. Hence, the startlement and terror before the dramatic moment when Jesus is fully recognized.

 

Jesus’ resurrection was a real event (every bit as real as his crucifixion), but one which no one witnessed first-hand. What was witnessed initially was an empty tomb – a necessary condition for the resurrection to be true, but insufficient evidence in itself. Something more had to happen, and something more did happen – a series of encounters which captured the novelty and uniqueness of the resurrection,  encounters with the glorified body of the Risen Christ in which the Risen Lord demonstrated to his disciples that he was the same Jesus who had lived and died (hence the wounds in his hands and his feet), fully alive now in a unexpectedly new and wonderful way. 

Unlike hallucinations or mystical experiences, these were authentic encounters with someone who had lived and died but was now beyond the reach of death, embodied in a completely new way.

 

The events described in today’s Gospel took place on that same eventful Sunday in Jerusalem, to which the two disciples had rushed back from their exciting encounter with the Risen Lord in the breaking of bread. Perhaps this was the same room where some of them had so recently eaten the Last Supper and where an already growing group of them would gather again after the ascension to await the coming of the Holy Spirit. Since apostolic times (long before it ever became a day off from work), Sunday has been the special day, the irreplaceably privileged day, when Christians assemble in churches to encounter Christ, the Risen Lord, present in the sacramental celebration of the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist.

 

To repeat the same news over and over again is one way to bear witness to its importance. To hear the proclamation of the resurrection, over and over, during these Easter Sundays strengthens our faith by the witness of others’ faith. That is why one of the most noticeable features that distinguishes Easter in our Catholic liturgical calendar is the daily reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Through our journey through the book of Acts, we identify ourselves with that first generation of Christians in their experience of the Risen Christ, becoming like them a community which witnesses to the presence and action of the Risen Lord in his Church, a community which expresses its new life in its worship.

 

And, so, we celebrate Easter not for one day or one week but for seven weeks, during which we relive the experience of those first Christians, transformed forever by the presence and power of the Risen Lord, experienced in the here and now in his word and sacraments. We see how eager they were to share that experience with everyone around them – an eagerness we need to learn from, for each of us is being propelled by the power of the Easter story to trust in its power to transform the world. 

Some of you here may also remember how the hymn which I began with concludes.

 

We ran out into the street to tell them,
everyone that we could meet, to tell them,
“God has raised Him up and we have seen the Lord!”
We took bread as He had done and then we blessed it, broke it, offered it.
In the breaking of the bread, we saw Him!
Suddenly our eyes were opened.
There within our midst was Jesus, and we knew He was alive.
In the breaking of the bread, He is here with us again,
and we know He is alive.

Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, April 14, 2024.

* Hymn by Michael Ward, © 1989.

 

Civil War (The Movie)

 

The actual American Civil War officially began on this date in 1861, with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. Most of us have grown up with casual cultural assumptions about American democracy's exceptionalism that have made it easy for us to normalize such conflicts in failed or failing states elsewhere but have made it comparably difficult for us to imagine that another such conflict could ever again occur in the United States. We instinctively assume that our stable political culture (and our antiquated constitution) could somehow protect us from intensifying democratic failure. Yet the fact that a real civil war did actually happen here once before should, however, disabuse us of such complacency. 

Coincidentally, British filmmaker Alex Garland's new film Civil War opens in theaters this week. Civil War, which premiered at South by Southwest last month, is set in a frightening, sometime future, failed-state U.S., as experienced on screen by a group of journalists covering the conflict (for Reuters) as civil war and seemingly random violence tear an increasingly dystopian U.S. apart. We seem intended to experience the conflict through the morally constricted world of journalism. The journalists in the film seem like otherwise normal people. However, one might suggest that, with civilization literally collapsing all around them, there might be more important priorities than getting a story and taking good pictures, but that seems somehow to elude them. Or perhaps it doesn't, for they too are not immune from war's personal toll.

Early on, we experience the confusion of a socially devastated New York, although the city's infrastructure - or at least its skyline (necessary one supposes for on-screen recognition) - still seems somewhat intact. As in some real 20th-century wars, the journalists are based in a still somewhat functioning hotel, from which they set out with professional determination to Washington, DC. The conflict has apparently been underway for some unspecified amount of time, long enough to do obvious damage. Along the way, there are several dangerous encounters, but exactly with whom is not always quite clear. There are also amazing pockets of normalcy. Indeed, we are casually informed that the two female photojournalists have parents living complacently on farms in Missouri and Colorado respectively. And Canadian money is willingly accepted, which suggests that things may still be just fine north of the border. Meanwhile, the journalists eventually reach what appears to be the military frontline in Charlottesville VA, as the rebels prepare to advance on Washington, DC. 

It remains unclear what the actual originating causes of the conflict were, when or why the war started, or even exactly who started it. The film's emphasis is more on the ever-increasing violence, which is the consequence of political collapse. For context, however, we do discover that, what remains of the federal government (led by a suggestively somewhat Trump-like, authoritarian third-term president, who has disbanded the FBI) is apparently at war with two breakaway states, California and Texas, the so-called "Western Forces." So there is both seemingly random (domestic terrorist?) violence all along the way, and then there is a full-scale military force ready to do battle against whatever is left of the United States. Shaken by what they have experienced and by their personal losses, but with a certain journalistic insouciance, the press crew attaches itself to the Western Forces for the final assault on the White House. (One of the traditional arguments against the possibility of an old-fashioned "civil war" happening again in the U.S. was that the federal government has such an overwhelming monopoly of military power. Yet, one of the unexplained oddities of this film is the almost complete absence of massive military power on the federal side and the impressive display of massive military hardware in the part of the secessionists!)

Most people probably find the idea of a California-Texas alliance somewhat implausible, as indeed most Americans must find the idea of an actual armed conflict or "civil war" among Americans itself implausible. But the film seems to want to take us sufficiently out of our immediate present in order to capture the character of a potentially looming American breakup, without necessarily identifying too closely or clearly with contemporary political divisions. The allegory is there for all to see, but general enough to be appreciated beyond the narrow confines of our contemporary tribal affiliations. The through-line, if you will, that connects our present epidemic of extreme polarization and the America depicted in the film may not be any particular political positions or ideologies as much as what seems to be the extreme mutual desire of each side to obliterate the other, the phenomenon known as "negative polarization."

The allegory works, however, precisely because it is just plausible enough. Underlying the dramatic depictions of a violent, failed state is the specter of actual American democracy's real potential for failure, as it appears to follow the classical trajectory into dysfunctional tyranny. "One of the most striking facts about the political world of the third millennium," Sheldon Wolin observed twenty years ago, "is the near universal acclaim accorded democracy" and democracy's novel status as "a transhistorical and universal value." [Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought, expanded ed. (2004) p. 585]. Obviously, modern democracy is not the same as the earlier democracies consistently condemned and feared by classical and early modern political theorists, from Plato and Aristotle to the American founders. Yet, it resembles its ancient namesake enough to suffer from similar disabilities, despite our era's distorted image of democracy's possibilities and liabilities, with the result that those ancient and early modern warnings remain relevant even in the third millennium.

Forever Elsewhere

 

"We are forever elsewhere," wrote MIT Professor Sherry Turtle in 2015 about our new life with smartphones. She is quoted approvingly by Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt in his latest book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (NY: Penguin Random House, 2024). According to Haidt, "a profound transformation of human consciousness and relationships" occurred between 2010 and 2015. This was "the birth of the phone-based childhood" and it marked "the definitive end of the play-baed childhood."

Haidt is hardly alone in lamenting these developments. Even the Holy See has joined the growing chorus of concern. In the newly released Declaration Dignitas Infinita, issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith just this week, we read: "Although the advancement of digital technologies may offer many possibilities for promoting human dignity, it also increasingly tends toward the creation of a world in which exploitation, exclusion, and violence grow," and "the more that opportunities for making connections grow in this realm, the more people find themsleve isolated and impoverished in interpersonal relationships" [DI, 61].

Haidt is the author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012) and co-author with Greg Lukianoff of The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018). His current book continues themes explored in the latter book.

Haidt highlights two components of the current crisis. The first was the end of the play-based childhood which has been characteristic of human beings for most of our history, right up until the end of the 20th century, when society suddenly started overprotecting children from he normal stresses of growing up. Traditional childhood was all about "the kinds of experiences humans evolved for and that they must that have in abundance to become socially functional adults." These include "the social skills necessary for life in a democratic society, including self-governance, joint decision making, and accepting the outcome when you. lose a contest." The recent move toward trying to raise children "in a bubble of satisfaction, protected from frustration, consequences, and negative emotions" Haidt argues, "may be blocking the development of competence, self-control, frustration tolerance, and emotional self-management." What'd Haidt calls "the 1990s turn to paranoid parenting" was facilitated, he contends, by what British sociologist Frank Furredi has called "the breakdown of adult solidarity." By now, we are well familiar with this critique of a social tendency and direction which preceded the smartphone and the phone-based world we now live in.

The second component of the current crisis, Haidt suggests, is that while overprotecting children and young people from the challenges of the real world, we have lately under-protected them from "the Wild Wes too the virtual world, where threats to children abounded." Among the harms he identifies are social isolation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. Again, unless one has willfully failed to observe what has been happening, none of this is surprising news. 

Haidt also highlights the specific but different harms being done to girls and to boys. His data demonstrate that girls are more adversely affected by social comparison and perfectionism a suffer more from relational aggression than boys. Meanwhile, "the rise of safetyism in the 1980s and 1990s hit boys harder than girls," while boys' increasing involvement with multiplayer video games in the 2000s and then with smartphones in the 2010s "pulled boys decisively away from face-to-face or shoulder-to-shoulder interaction." This is contributing to the ongoing "friendship recession" among men. "In the 1990s, only 3% of American men reported having no close friends. By 2021, that number had risen fivefold to 15%."

Haidt calls Emile Durkheim "the most profound thinker about the nature of society,"and reflects Durkheim's concern about anomie, "an absence of stable and widely shared norms and rules."  Following Durkheim, Haidt highlights how "the strongest and most satisfying communities come into being when something lifts people out of the lower level so that they h av powerful collective experiences. ... People who live only in networks, rather than communities, are less likely to thrive."

So, now, we know what we have been doing wrong. What, if anything can be done about it to correct it? Schools, from elementary through high school level, Haidt argues, "should go phone-free to improve not only mental health but academic outcomes as well." Outside of school, children should again experience real-world freedom. He favors the movement for "Reasonable Childhood Independence" Laws, but he believes schools have a special part to play in this. "Re-normalizing childhood independence requires collective action, and collective action is most easily facilitated by local schools. Parents, of course, are also primary players in this process, and Haidt provides detailed recommendations for changed parental behavior. In sum, his "four foundational reforms" are:

1. No smartphones before high school

2. No social media before age 16

3. Phone-free schools

4. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence.

Haidt concludes that what he calls "the Great Rewiring of Childhood, from play-based to phone-based, has been a catastrophic failure" and that it is "time to end the experiment" and "bring our children home."

Total Eclipse

Historians have long been fond of eclipses, especially since historical references to ancient eclipses sometimes enable other ancient events to be dated more precisely than would otherwise be possible. One of the earliest known solar eclipses was in 1375 B.C. and was recorded in the ancient city of Ugarit, in what is now Syria. In earlier times, eclipses were often interpreted as signs or omens of some contemporary calamity. They have also been known to alter behavior. Thus, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that an eclipse that occurred during a battle between the Medes and the Lydians in 585 B.C. caused the two armies to stop fighting and make peace. Wouldn’t it be something if today’s eclipse had that kind of effect on any of the conflicts currently tearing our world apart! 

Like the many who are traveling near and far today to experience the awesome wonder of the eclipse, we are all pilgrims seeking the light revealed amid the dark shadows of our day-to-day divisions and conflicts. 

In August 2017, together with many other "eclipse pilgrims," I was privileged to view the total eclipse of the sun from our observation point at Saint Joseph the Worker Church in Madisonville, TN, a manageable drive from Knoxville. The photo above was one of many I took that memorable day.

How I wish I could repeat that experience today! Alas, the path of totality is too far west of here to make that feasible. I do hope that as many as possible will be able to avail themselves of the opportunity to see this most amazing natural show (and that the weather will cooperate). May their experience be safe and as inspiring as previous eclipses have been for others. For myself, however, I must content myself with memories and reflections from that last total solar eclipse.

Blow the trumpet at the new moon, said the psalmist (Psalm 81:3). In Tennessee in August 2017t, he Moon blew her own trumpet, as she put on a show of shows, covering up the Sun in an amazing spectacle of light and shadow. Since Knoxville was just outside the path of totality, the four of us drove down to the southernmost parish in our deanery, which was scheduled to be more than two minutes in Totality. From there, we were able to view the eclipse in all its amazing grandeur. Needles to say, we were not alone. We left in mid-morning, hoping to avoid getting snarled in traffic and successfully got to the city of Madisonville around 11:00, which left us plenty of time to get some lunch in a crowded roadside restaurant with some of the other "eclipse pilgrims" who were swelling the town's population on that so memorable day. 

Then on to the local church, where we met up with others we knew and others who had come from as far off as Mexico and Queens, NY, to experience this awesome spectacle. Children were playing games. People were cooking food in the parking lot and picnicking on the grass. It was a real party atmosphere. Everyone was friendly and hospitable, inviting others to share their food. After making a proper visit to the church itself upon arrival, I periodically retreated to that air-conditioned building to sit down and cool off while we waited and to reflect upon what we were witnessing.

The first part of the eclipse went on for over an hour. The Moon bit more and more into the Sun, which itself as a result came more and more to resemble a kind of crescent moon! The effect of wearing the special eclipse glasses was startling! Unlike wearing sunglasses, for example, when wearing the special eclipse glasses you could see nothing at all, total darkness - except for the sun, which looked like a small yellow disk, getting progressive smaller as the hour passed. If you didn't know what you were looking at, you might think you were looking at the night sky during one of the partial phases of a harvest moon.

Towards the end of the Moon's apparent conquest of the Sun, you could feel the difference in the atmosphere, as the air got just a little bit cooler and the sky started to get darker. You could see it in the images of the crescent sun reflected in shadow in patterns on the ground. Soon it seemed like an eerie twilight. One could hear the animals reacting accordingly, as if imagining thatd it must suddenly be sunset.

And then it was dark! Two or three stars appeared in the sky, as the sun was completely covered and its hot corona suddenly shone all around the dark disk of the Moon. People cheered. People prayed. 

And then it was suddenly light again. No sooner did the Moon's movement reveal a small sliver of the Sun (on the other side this time), then normal light started to return. I suppose the poor animals were completely confused, as well they might be. We, however, who understood what we had seen and experienced could only express our joyful admiration: 

Sun and Moon, bless the Lord! (Daniel 3:62). 

“It is the Lord!”

 

Modern pilgrims in Israel quickly sense the contrast between the dry desert of Judea (where Jerusalem is) and the relatively lush, green of Galilee (where today’s Gospel story is set). Renewed annually by winter’s life-giving rains, the land around the large lake the Gospel calls the Sea of Tiberias (more commonly called the Sea of Galilee) is at its greenest in spring. It had been from those familiar shores that Jesus had originally called his disciples to follow him. And now they’d come home – back to what they knew best. They went fishing. 

But this was to be no normal fishing expedition!

There’s a little church on the shore that marks the supposed site of this event. In front of the altar is a rock, traditionally venerated as the stone on which the risen Lord served his disciples a breakfast of bread and fish. Just a short walk away is another church, marking the site where Jesus had (not so long before) fed 5000+ people with five loaves and a few fish. Presumably, the disciples would have well remembered that earlier meal. And, surely, we should as well, as we also assemble here at the table lovingly set for us by the risen Lord himself, here in this church, where, as surely as on that distant lakeshore, he feeds us with food we would never have gotten on our own. 

Typically, in these gospel stories of the risen Lord’s appearances to his disciples, there is the sense that, while it eventually becomes clear that this is the same Jesus the disciples had followed in life and who had died on the Cross, something about him is now different. Hence, the dramatic moment when Jesus is recognized for certain, as when the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”

But recognizing the risen Christ is not the end of the story but the beginning of a new life, a new life lived in a community of love. We learn that love by following the risen Lord. So, even before being formally invested with his special mission, Peter leads the way, dressing up for the occasion, jumping into the sea and swimming to Jesus ahead of the others. As his role requires, Peter here is already leading his flock, leading here by example. His example illustrates for the rest of us what it means, first, to recognize the risen Lord and, then, actually to follow him.

Homily for Friday within the Octave of Easter, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, April 5, 2024.